It’s Saturday, and there’s not much going on around the Jaguars right now, so I’m going to take this opportunity to point out the greatness of the single elimination playoff. We’re nearing the end of one of the greatest sporting months of the year with March Madness, and it’s that madness that makes such a system great.

Single elimination systems aren’t designed to crown the best team as the champion. That’s what college football’s BS BCS system is designed to do, but there are simply too many teams in college football with too few games to really be able to do that effectively.

A single elimination system is designed to crown a legitimate champion. The regular season becomes qualifying, not part of the big show as it is in college football. Some would say that such a system takes away from the importance of the regular season which is only true to an extent. You still have to make the tournament to win it all, but that’s half the fun.

Playoff systems in general give us de-facto playoff games that the BCS system just doesn’t offer. Any sporting season should end with the climax, not fall flat on a number of meaningless games that no one actually watches as the bowl system so often does. Playoff systems aren’t perfect; no system is, but they give us gut wrenching moments that can define a generation of sports. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a pair of excellent semi-final games this evening, and marvel at the beauty of the playoffs.

About Shane Clemons

Shane Clemons came from humble beginnings creating his own Jaguars blog before moving on to SBNation as a featured writer for the Jaguars. He then moved to Bloguin where he briefly covered the AFC South before taking over Bloguin's Jaguars blog. Since the inception of This Given Sunday, Shane has served as an editor for the site, doing his best not to mess up a good thing.